A word from the parents of Hogwarts
by breakfastwithponds
Summary: A series of letters from the parents of Hogwarts raising various issues that I'm sure we've all questioned at some point because, let's face it, Hogwarts as a school system makes no sense
1. Chapter 1

**A/N This is the first letter in my fic and I shall update regularly. If you have any suggestions feel free to tell me**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately I don't own Harry Potter**

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**_September 1992_**

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

I am writing to express my growing concern about the transportation of children to the school, a matter which has been brought to light recently by the rumours of actions taken by two second year pupils. Surely you must have realised that there is a systematic problem here if, when two twelve year olds are faced with the prospect of missing a train, they have to take actions as drastic as flying a car from London to Scotland, particularly when it is very unlikely either of them really know how to drive at twelve years old.

Although I am not advocating their supposed use of a flying car, it did force me to ask the question of what I would do in that situation.

It is absolutely ridiculous that our children's education is dependent on them boarding a particular train (I know several muggle parents who are constantly concerned about the traffic in Central London). Do you expect us to be happy with the fact that, if our child over sleeps, they just don't get an education this year?

Surely it wouldn't be too unreasonable to operate two trains? Or does that not fit into your budget despite the fact that the majority of your labour works for free? I do hope you take this matter seriously because the current situation is unreliable and simply preposterous.

Yours sincerely

Amelia Wood


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything else drawn from the books**

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**_July 1991_**

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

I am a non-magical parent of a student who shall start attending your school in a few weeks and have a few queries about the equipment you require us to purchase.

My primary issue concerns the positively medieval use of quills- surely it would save a lot of time and energy simply to allow the children to use ball point pens? I know you seem to disregard the use of non magical technology within the school due to the way they apparently won't work in a magical atmosphere, but a pen is hardly the pinnacle of modern technology.

Also, just use normal paper, nobody's written on parchment since the time of Henry VIII.

Yours sincerely

Susan Finch-Fletchley


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thank you for all the follows guys, it's really appreciated!**

**Allderasta: love you too pumpkin, your kind words touch my heart**

**loststorieshogwartz: thank you so much this was really appreciated (especially after my first review was so negative) you literally saved this story**

**and thanks for the ideas everyone!**

**disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter**

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**_October 1992_**

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

I am writing on the grounds of complaint surrounding an incident involving my daughter and the Divination teacher at your school, who I believe goes by the name Sybil Trelawney.

My daughter is in her third year at your school and elected to begin her studies of the subject of divination this year, which she did so a few weeks ago. Personally I am not convinced of how useful this subject shall be in the future but, all personal preferences aside, something needs to be done about the teaching of this particular subject.

Firstly, my daughter told me that the room was extremely stuffy and a wide variety of unrecognisable incenses were being burned- I'm just warning you now professor that if I discover that my daughter has been given drugs at any point in her time at your school, Ill have the ministry of magic shut your whole system down.

As well as my suspicions surrounding this issue, it must also be noted that my child is now seeking counselling as a result of her experiences in this subject. It would appear that this Professor Trelawney told my 13 year old child, who I may add is deathly afraid of large and violent creatures, that she would be mauled to death in her sleep by a grizzly bear before the year is out. She has been unable to sleep for a week and I request at the very least some compensation for the amount we are having to pay for these counselling sessions and also the immediate dismissal of the member of staff responsible for causing such trauma to my child.

Yours Sincerely

Horatio Edgecombe


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter**

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_**November 1993**_

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

I am writing in order to complain about your most recent appointment of the new head of Care of Magical Creatures. My son has been studying the subject for many years and is currently taking it on to NEWT level so, as would be expected, I am very invested in the competence of those who will be helping him to pass these, very important may I add, exams.

I bare no personal prejudices against the race, size or species of the new teacher and am concerned only with his own abilities to teach. I myself actually attended school while Hagrid was still a student and remember that, despite his seemingly pleasant nature, he was expelled in his third year on the grounds of raising a creature that eventually killed a student at the school. As a parent this raises several concerns for me.

Firstly there remains the fact that he is unqualified. He has not even been taught to OWL standards so how would you expect me to be content with him teaching my son to a much higher level than he has ever achieved himself? I suspect that he will be learning far more this year than my son will, a matter which I take very seriously considering this is his final year at Hogwarts.

Furthermore, this man was expelled for being unable to control violent animals. There is a strong possibility of him losing control of a creature in a lesson and, knowing how violent these animals can be, a serious accident could occur. I have already heard tell of a third year boy who nearly lost his arm to a hippogriff. Though he was a Malfoy so it is fairly likely he was too up himself to give the creature the proper respect it demanded. But that is beside the point.

I have no objection to Hagrid remaining in his position as gamekeeper where I'm sure he was extremely competent, but merely ask that you consider your decision very carefully and ask yourself whether you have made this choice based on a strong personal friendship or on what will most benefit the students at your school.

Yours sincerely

Alastair Boot


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N thank you for your response guys- keep reviewing because it makes my day! Also just a note on this one: I am in no way suggesting any of the characters or actors involved in Harry potter are fat or overweight, merely exploring a hypothetical situation which could well have occurred. I'm also not saying being overweight is a bad thing, only that it can lead to negative health effects. Just so we've got that clear :)**

**disclaimer: I don't own the harry potter franchise **

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_**June 1966**_

Dear Professor Dumbledore, I wish to raise with you my concern over the increasing issue of obesity at Hogwarts, which I'm sure has come to your attention and, let's be honest, it was only a matter of time until something like this happened.

Your current system poses a severe health risk to your students but, if you follow my advice, I'm sure we can pass through this occurrence without any major long term effects.

The first solution would be to end the policy of having quidditch as your only form of 'sport'. It involves no exercise, requires no movement apart from that of one arm and is also primarily dependant on who has the money to own the fastest broom rather than on any particular skill. Surely you could adopt some muggle sport that would actually involve some exercise? This is the first step you must take to reduce this crisis.

Another would be to restrict your seemingly unlimited food supply. Having food in so much excess is not only wasteful but also encourages the children to eat until they are completely full. As they are doing no exercise to burn off this fat, they begin to reach an unhealthy weight- a situation which has become far too common in recent times.

I hope you realise the seriousness of the situation you are in and take the appropriate measures to tackle the issue sooner rather than later, for I fear Poppy Pomfrey will soon grow tired of issuing dietary requirements.

Yours sincerely

Lucinda Jorkins

Parent, Head Healer at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N aarrrgrhhh thank you for all the positive reviews everybody! Any feedback you give is really appreciated so please continue because it makes my day. seriously.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter**

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**_September 1993_**

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

For many years I have put up with the unsanitary maintenance of animals as pets within your school, but I've had enough. The types of creatures you are allowing house space in your castle these days is disgusting and my daughter has frequently written home to me in complaint about the creatures she is being forced to live with.

I've always found the thought of keeping a toad as a pet rather repellent but have been willing to overlook this fact since, for some unknown reason, you allow these creatures to roam around the student's common room and dormitories, and I am not going to attempt to correct the rules you already have in place. That being said, I have heard several accounts of toad spawn being found in the children's lavatories, a situation which I'm sure you'll agree is positively revolting and I hope you will address this situation in the future.

However, I have only recently been provoked into writing to you about these matters upon my recent trip to platform 9¾ to drop my daughter off for the start of term. Whilst there, I saw a student carrying a rat with him onto the train. _A rat_. I have received the necessary list of equipment for students wishing to attend your school for several years now and am painfully aware that it permits students to bring 'either an owl OR a cat OR a toad'. I'm sure it is blatantly obvious that there is no mention of a rat on this list.

Essentially, I think your school needs to enforce the rules regarding animals allowed in the school more strictly, or else these rodents will start to breed and cause an outbreak of disease amongst the students. I sincerely hope you will no longer be allowing such vermin in the student's workplace and will only be allowing the animals deemed sanitary enough to be present in a school environment.

I hope I won't be writing to you again. Just remember Professor, rules are always put in place for a reason.

Yours Sincerely

Pamela Brown


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything drawn from the Harry Potter books. This fact saddens me everyday.**

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_**July 1989**_

Professor Dumbledore,

As a non-magical parent, I have a few questions about the curriculum studied at your school before allowing my daughter to begin her attendance there in a few months time.

I have been looking over the set list of books and it appears one of your core subjects is 'herbology' and, after investigating further into this subject area, since many of the subjects on your curriculum are unknown to me, it would appear that this is a glorified version of gardening. I find it difficult to understand why you seem to believe that learning how to pot a plant is more important than skills such as mathematics, which appears to be missed off your syllabus will you expect your students to handle their finances in later life? Or perhaps in 'herbology' you teach them how to plant their coins to make their money grow on trees.

I request a reply explaining to me why it is so important that my daughter learns about the properties of flesh eating cabbages over the skills of basic mathematics, especially considering the majority of your students never even attended a primary school. I shall warn you now that my daughter will not be attending your school unless you can justify the current curriculum or make efforts to improve it.

Yours sincerely

Roger Spinnet


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Thank you so much for reviewing, following and favouriting everybody! It makes my day. Seriously. Reviewers especially- I love you guys. This is also a desperate plea for ideas. I mean I still have nearly 20 things on my giant list of doom but some of them are, well they're not that great. So if any of you extremely creative people can think of anything else then let me know! Okay, I'm aware that this is kind of a long A/N so um yeah, I hope you enjoy this chapter**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Hogwarts, Dumbledore or anything else directly drawn from the Harry Potter books. Just the satire. Aren't I talented?**

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_**May 1996**_

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

The many failures of your system of transporting the students to school each September costs my family hundreds of pounds, and so I am writing to you to urge you to rectify the nonsensical system you currently uphold.

My family is, with the exception of my two sons, one without any magical abilities and we currently reside in Glasgow, where we have been living for many years. You can understand the pain, therefore, that we have to go to transport our children to school. Despite the fact that the school itself can only be situated little over an hour from our home, every year we have to make the five hour journey to London since we have no means of faster transportation and have to make the journey by car.

This is completely illogical.

Why, the train probably even passes our house at some point along its journey! Tell me now, would it not make far more sense for the train to stop at other stations along its journey, therefore reducing both the time and money put in by hundreds of parents to get their child all the way to London? A system such as this would involve minimal effort to introduce and I hope you give it considerable thought, or at least offer some sort of compensation for the hundreds of pounds we've had to spend on petrol over the years to send our children to your school.

Yours sincerely

Gregory Macdonald


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N a lot of the reasoning in this one works off the idea that many of the students and parents wouldn't have known that Harry was facing Voldemort and basilisks and the like or the school would have been shut down. Also, although many of the students are said to have been speculating about what Harry gets up to at the end of the school years, they never seem to tell anybody the whole truth themselves and it's very unlikely people's theories would have revolved around a giant chess set. And yes, I know they deserved the points and weren't always in last place before but, as a Ravenclaw and someone who's school house only won for the first time this year, if I were there I'd be getting a bit annoyed. Just saying**

**Disclaimer: All rights go to JK Rowling**

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**August 1996**

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

As you know, the house system means a lot to all the students who attend your school, and so I would prefer it if you were less blatantly biased. It's rather unprofessional and is also starting to impact the general morale come the end of the school year, as well as inspiring resent for those students you favour so heavily.

I understand that you were once a Gryffindor yourself but you can see how it would impact on the morale of the other students when you consistently, towards the end of the year when rivalries between the houses are already running high, give seemingly random points to students from this house, thus allowing them to win the house cup despite them being in last place until these last minute points. And you've done this every year. For 5 years.

This would not be such a crime if it were not always to the same students, and if you provided any actual reason to the school for awarding Gryffindor 170 points on the last day of term rather than obscure ones such as '_the best played game of chess Hogwarts has seen these many years_'. To be perfectly honest, I don't think having a natural talent at chess entitles you to 50 points, especially since defeating a mountain troll apparently only earns 5.

I understand that you have favourite students, all teachers do no matter how much they deny it. But I urge you to act with more subtlety in future because, frankly, everybody's getting a bit miffed.

Yours Sincerely

Amelia Bones


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Thanks for all the positive response everybody- Keep reviewing and favouriting and all that jazz... please? **

**Disclaimer: Nothing drawn from the Harry Potter books belongs to me, but is the work of JK Rowling. Shame that.**

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_**July 1992**_

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

Have you ever thought about your marking system? That is to say, have you ever sat down and seriously thought about it? I doubt it. If you ever do find the time and consideration to look at the results of each student at the end of the year, you will notice that the mark schemes you currently uphold make no sense. None at all.

This year, my daughter came home and told me she earned 112% in her end of year charms exam. I trust my daughter completely and, if she was going to lie, would assume she would pick a more believable score and so I can therefore only conclude that this was indeed her score. This is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

Surely you realise that allowing students to get well over full marks completely devalues the whole test? She got over full marks, so does that mean she did well or did everybody else get 200% leaving her at the bottom of the class? By not applying a range of marks you completely lose any sense of context and besides, what is the point in even setting a maximum mark if the teacher just decides to give out marks for any correct piece of information?

This way of marking does not help me, as a parent, to keep track of my daughters' progress and also allows her to get used to a haphazard system of marking which will not be applied come her external exams in a few years. Please rectify the situation immediately. It's not that hard to have an orderly system of marking- every other school in the country manages to do it.

Yours sincerely

Louise Granger


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything drawn from the Harry Potter books**

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_**April 1992**_

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

My grandson recently informed me that he was instructed to carry out his detention in the forbidden forest. Now I understand the need to issue detentions, keeps the children in line and all that, but surely the forbidden forest is, well, _forbidden_?

There's a reason it's off limits to students! There are highly dangerous creatures there that could seriously harm the students- it's no place for eleven year old children! Especially since I have been told that two of the children were sent off on their own, not even having any adult supervision! I hope I will not hear of my grandson being subjected to dangers of this sort again, and would much prefer it if he passed out his detentions in areas deemed safe for the children.

I hope that this does not cause too much inconvenience, though I am still yet to understand why you thought that this would be the best way for the children to serve their punishments when you claim to hold student safety so close to your heart.

Yours sincerely

Augusta Longbottom


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: This one goes to zeropolis79 for the suggestion. I know it's not really along the same lines as the others but still, I thought it was a good idea so I gave it a go anyway **

**Disclaimer: Anything drawn from the Harry Potter books belongs to JK Rowling. I don't own anything really, just my hilarious wit, but considering that's pretty much non-existent, I own nothing**

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_**May 1992**_

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

I wish to enquire about the boarding procedures set out for the summer holidays at your school. I know that students are entitled to remain at the school during the Easter and Christmas holidays, but it would really make life much simpler for my family if my nephew could remain at the school during the summer holidays as well, though naturally we have the boy's best interests at heart.

However, we have our own child to care for and tend to find that our nephew rather gets in the way when he's at home. We've found this year to be so much more convenient, with him out of our hair all the time and only wish for this blissful normality to continue, as well as wanting the boy to get more out of his education of course. It would make our son so happy if you would take care of the boy for us, and would allow us to continue to live our perfectly _normal_ lives in the summer, something we've always dreamed of.

It would be much appreciated if you could do us this small favour, why even though we shall miss the child terribly we are willing to make this sacrifice for the good of his education. It is what's best for the child after all.

Petunia Dursley


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Sorry I haven't updated in ages I feel so bad! I've got exams coming up though and they're kind of important as in they play a big part in what university I can get into important, so I probably won't update for a while after this. So yes, I'm still here, just incredibly stressed and with very little time to write these.**

**Disclaimer: No I'm not JK Rowling. I know, I had you all fooled didn't I? **

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**_May 1997_**

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

Has it ever occurred to you that there's a certain safety hazard surrounding moving staircases? There have been seven children that have been injured so far this term due to this 'ingenious' idea. _Seven_! That's a ridiculous number of students who have managed to fall off these stair cases through no fault of their own- it can only be expected if a staircase starts to move when you've only got one foot on it!

It wouldn't even be so bad if the fact that the staircases move was in anyway beneficial. There are 142 staircases in your castle and the fact that they all seem to either move, have a trick vanishing step or only appear on a Monday means that the students are consistently late for class. Not only are they breaking their bones but they're also missing out on valuable learning time!

I know you enjoy making the castle as magical as is humanely possible but in some cases it is simply better to leave things as they are

Yours sincerely

Georgina Robbins


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